


Muggle Methods

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy-centric, Gen, POV Draco Malfoy, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 02:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “But there may be a muggle solution. It’s called… hmm… psychitry? psyachitery?”
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	Muggle Methods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swingandswirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swingandswirl/gifts).



Draco hated having to go to St. Mungo’s, but it seemed like his only option at the moment. Hopefully a healer there could help, or at least suggest a new potion to try. He’d been using Dreamless Sleep almost nightly for months now, and it wasn’t quite the relief he wanted it to be. Every night he didn’t use it, nightmares kept him awake for hours, but every time he did, he woke up feeling groggy and ill rested. Neither was a particularly good outcome in Draco’s opinion. He needed something else.

The hospital was calmer now than the last time he’d been there. To be fair, his last visit had been just after the Battle of Hogwarts, close to a year ago now. He’d had minor wounds, but there had been many others with far more serious ones. The hospital had been practically overrun by the amount of people being transferred there from the ruins of Hogwarts.

By now most of even the most grievously injured were home, but Draco still felt the shadow of that day as he sat in the waiting room. It featured in his nightmares often, both the battle itself and the aftermath at the hospital. Draco shivered and hoped this appointment would go quickly.

A young woman in the pale blue robes of a trainee healer stepped into the waiting room. “Mr. Malfoy?” Draco stood up and she nodded. “Healer Rhys will see you now. This way.”

He followed her down a hallway and into a small room, where she left him. He only sat for a few minutes before another healer came in, this one in the lime green robes of a full healer, the St. Mungo’s emblem of a wand crossed with a bone embroidered on one side. He didn’t seem much older than Draco himself, but he supposed that made sense. This wasn’t exactly a high priority case for the hospital.

“Mr. Malfoy, I’m Healer Rhys,” the man said, smiling and holding out a hand to shake.

He seemed nice enough, and it certainly helped that he didn’t seem at all put off by Draco’s name as many in the magical world still were. Rightly, probably, but it still hurt. The war was over and Draco had ended up on the right side in the end, even if his parents now resided in Azkaban.

Healer Rhys looked at the chart he held in his hands. “I see this is more of a consultation visit for sleeping problems,” he said. “You’ve been taking Dreamless Sleep regularly for how long?”

“Months now, since the end of the war. Most nights a week,” Draco said. He saw Healer Rhys’ raised eyebrow and winced a little. “If I don’t take it… well, I can’t sleep those nights. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I see.” Healer Rhys considered that for a moment, tapping at the chart. “Unfortunately Dreamless Sleep isn’t meant for long term use. It’s a temporary fix for a night or to help jumpstart better sleep.”

Draco sighed. He knew all that, but what other choice did he have? There weren’t any other potions on the market that could compare as far as he knew, but he needed something.

“Is there something else, then?” Draco asked, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. “A potion, a spell? Anything?”

There was a long silence, and Draco’s heart sank. He could tell from Healer Rhys’ face that there wasn’t anything, that there was no magical cure to help him sleep. To help him through the horrible nightmares he hadn’t even had the courage to mention.

“I’m afraid there’s no magic I know of that can help you sleep when Dreamless Sleep hasn’t,” Healer Rhys finally said. “But…”

He trailed off and Draco leaned forward, his heart suddenly beating double time. “But?” Draco demanded.

Healer Rhys grimaced a little, the expression gone as soon as it appeared. “But there may be a muggle solution. It’s called… hmm… psychitry? psyachitery?” He shook his head, grinning crookedly. “Something like that. My sister’s a squib, so she went to learn in the muggle world. They have a fascinating branch of healing for the mind there, and I think it might be helpful. Should I set up an appointment for you?”

Draco hesitated, not liking the idea of muggle methods or going into something without knowing what it was. But he needed sleep and he needed a break from the nightmares, and this seemed to be the only option left to him. He sighed.

“Yes, that would be kind of you.”

⁂

Draco had never spent much time in the muggle world, both because of his family and from general disinterest. Now, sitting in what Healer Rhys had called a “mental health clinic” somewhere in muggle London, Draco wished he knew more about it.

“Mr. Malfoy?”

He looked up to see a woman dressed in pale blue trousers and tunic standing in front of him, a board with papers in her hand. She wasn’t smiling, but she looked kind. He stood.

“That’s me,” he said.

She nodded and turned toward the back of the room where there was a door that presumably led to the rest of the building. “Wonderful, follow me.”

She led him to an office at the end of a hall. There was another woman sitting at a desk, writing. She looked up as he entered and the first woman shut the door behind him. There was something about her, or perhaps the room, that made Draco relax just a little.

“Mr. Malfoy, it’s nice to meet you,” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Corinne Chastings, but you can call me Cory if you’d like. I prefer a bit of a more casual atmosphere.”

“Draco, then,” he replied, taking the seat she gestured to. It wasn’t across the desk from her, but off to the side, and a moment later she took the seat next to it, a stack of paper and a pen in her hand.

“I understand from my brother that you’ve come here because you’ve had some trouble sleeping for the past several months? And that you’ve tried some magical means to help?” He nodded, and she made a small note. “Sleep is a difficult thing to pin down sometimes, so let’s start at the beginning and see if we can find out what’s contributing to these problems.”

The beginning… well, that was complicated. Certainly he could start with the end of the war. Or he could start with the Dark Lord returning. Or he could start with his family.

The problem was, he wasn’t really sure what Cory wanted from him. He wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear.

“What… how do I start at the beginning?” he asked after a long moment of silence. It irked him to have to ask, to not just know what was expected of him, but this wasn’t his world and he didn’t know enough about it.

“Oh yes, I’m sorry!” Cory said, giving him a sideways grin. “I’m not used to having magical clients who might not know how this works. Essentially, I’d like you to talk through the problems you’ve been having. From when they started, or earlier if you’d like. I’ll try to give you some guidance so that together we can pinpoint the causes and offer solutions.”

Draco nodded, feeling marginally better. Talk, he could do that. As a Malfoy, he’d been taught since birth to be able to hold proper conversations. They were mostly for talking around things than about them, but still.

So, he talked.

He told Cory about his assignment from the Dark Lord and how he’d failed and dishonored his family. About the Battle of Hogwarts and all the people he’d gone to school with who hadn’t survived. About his parents being sentenced to life in Azkaban for their siding with the Dark Lord. About lonely nights where he couldn’t sleep and was woken by horrible nightmares whenever he did. About taking Dreamless Sleep almost every night even though he knew he shouldn’t.

He hadn’t meant to say so much or go into so much detail. He figured he’d give her the basics and see what she said about it. But the more he talked, the easier it was to just keep talking. It was like some floodgates had opened.

Finally, the words died down. Draco’s throat was dry from talking so much, and he had lost track of how long it had been there. He felt strangely vulnerable and exhausted as he looked over at Cory, who looked back with a kind expression, he felt tears prickle at the corner of his eyes.

“And now… here I am,” he finished lamely.

He crossed his arms over his chest, clenching his jaw in an effort to keep the tears from falling. He wasn’t sure he could bear to cry right now; he thought the last time he’d cried in front of someone was when he was a child.

There was silence for a second, then Cory leaned forward to place a light hand on his knee for a second before pulling back. It was the first kind, purposeful touch he’d had in so long that it made him shiver.

“It sounds like you’ve been through a lot,” she said, her voice equally soft. “I’m not surprised you’ve had trouble sleeping, or that you’ve been having nightmares. Those are both common effects of trauma and abuse.”

Draco flinched a little at her words, curling in on himself as much as he could while still sitting upright. “So is there anything you can do?”

“Remember, this is a journey more than a straightforward magical cure, and we may have to try several things to see real results,” she said, not unkindly. Draco grimaced a little, wishing it was otherwise, but nodded. “That said, I do have some things for you to try before our next appointment.”

⁂

Draco hadn’t expected to have homework from his appointments with Cory, but as the weeks went on, he thought it might be helping. He was still having nightmares, but they were lessening in frequency and intensity. He only took Dreamless Sleep once or twice a week, and he actually felt himself hopeful that that might even lessen if he continued.

Cory herself was hopeful as well, as she told him during his visits. She said he was making good progress and she was proud of him.

That more than anything felt like a victory, though Draco was loath to say as such. But he hadn’t heard those words from anyone in so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like to have anyone look at him with such faith in him as a person. It was nice.

A month after his first visit, Draco started seeing familiar faces in the waiting room. One of the older Weasleys. Parvati and Padma Patil. Some classmates who he didn’t know in more than passing. Even Harry Potter.

They didn’t say anything, didn’t even acknowledge each other in most cases, but it was a little relieving to know that he wasn’t the only wizard who suffered from problems that couldn’t be cured by magic. It made him feel just a little less alone.

He was thinking about that as he sat down for one of his appointments. Cory was still writing at her desk when he came in, but she gestured for him to go ahead and take his normal seat. He waited just a few minutes before she finished up and stepped over to sit by him.

“Before we start today, I’d like to discuss something with you, Draco,” she said, making him immediately tense. She smiled. “I’m sorry, I probably could have worded that better. It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

“Alright…” he replied.

“I’m not sure if you know any of them, but you may have noticed some other magical folks at the clinic the past few weeks.” She tapped her pen against her pad of paper, and Draco got the sense that she was a little nervous about the topic for some reason. “In the muggle world we have something called group therapy, which is similar to what we already do but in larger groups so that patients can help each other. I’d like to try some group therapy with you and some of the others, if you’d be willing.’

Ah, so there it was.

Draco considered the request carefully. Before he started seeing Cory, it would have been an automatic no. Even a week or two into, the answer probably still would have been no. But now… well, now he’d seen how much it helped to talk about the war and his family even though he never would have thought it would.

And he’d seen that there were others who needed that too. He wasn’t sure how well it would work seeing as he’d been in conflict with many of them for years and there were likely few good feelings toward him, but if Cory thought it was a good idea, well, who was he to say no?

“Alright,” he finally said, making Cory smile. “I’m in.”


End file.
